Free Republic

Greenpeace is running rampant across Alberta’s oil sands. In the past few weeks, 37 activists have been arrested in a spate of incidents targeting North America’s most important energy resource. The most recent occurred on Oct. 5 when 19 activists stormed an upgrader in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. They tied themselves to equipment which is used to transform heavy oil into gasoline. The protesters unfurled banners reading “Climate Crime” and “Climate SOS” to draw attention to an industry they say is killing the planet. In September, two-dozen Greenpeace commandoes kayaked down the Athabasca River to intercept a Suncor bridge where conveyor...

There's something the Democratic lawmakers who are pushing cap-and-trade legislation don't want the public to know. The controversial climate-change legislation winding its way through Congress will impose a massive new national gas tax on the American people. We discovered this by analyzing what the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill would do to gas prices and what Americans spend on gasoline, diesel and jet fuels. We found that cap-and-trade legislation will levy a $3.6 trillion gas-tax increase that will impact every American and important segments of our economy. Americans travel more than 200 million vehicle miles each month, and annually we spend nearly...

Reporting from El Centro, Calif. - Across the desert flatlands of southeastern California, dozens of companies have flooded federal offices with applications to place solar mirrors on more than a million acres of public land. But just as some of those projects appear headed toward fruition, environmental hurdles threaten to jeopardize efforts to further tap the region's renewable energy potential. The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that...

The Environmental Protection Agency announced a proposed rule Wednesday to begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from thousands of power plants and large industrial facilities. The proposed rule would require polluters to install the best available technology to capture greenhouse gases whenever a new plant is opened or significantly changed. The rule applies to any industrial plant that emits at least 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. When the rule is final, the EPA said operators of as many 14,000 sources of pollution would have to get additional permits. The proposal, long anticipated and highly controversial, marks the first government...

WASHINGTON � Sen. Barbara Boxer left little doubt she was having a particularly good time Wednesday. Wearing sunglasses, California's junior Democratic senator made her way to a stage on the east lawn of the Capitol, then stood in front of a huge U.S. flag and waved to a throng of supporters as U2's "It's a Beautiful Day" roared through the loudspeakers. "What a great day!" enthused the senator. "This is like giving birth again!" Boxer was celebrating her alliance with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry to introduce a long-awaited bill that, if approved, could land her in the history books....

Taking the “Green Car Challenge” on Thursday night’s Jay Leno Show, a svelte Rush Limbaugh -- declining to don a helmet -- hopped into the electric Ford Focus on Leno’s track behind his NBC studio in Burbank, but instead of driving around the hanging cut outs of Al Gore and Ed Begley Jr., Limbaugh ran right into them. Then, to Leno’s cries of “Oh, c’mon!”, a delighted Limbaugh accepted the penalty against his time score and stopped, backed up and smashed into them again. Limbaugh’s maneuvering ensured a lower score (greater time) than the three previous contestants since Leno’s show...

Like a bad episode of Sci-fi TV serial Heroes, “Kill the Cheerleader Save the World” Global warming fanatics like Jonathan Freedland still intend to advance their Sci-fi theories of anthropogenic global warming in spite of the facts. (see story)and (here) The facts are that their discredited theories that CO2 emissions are the cause of globing warming are fundamentally wrong. So they know that the only way to completely rid themselves of any real rational debate and keep the Al Gore hysteria of global impeding doom alive is to kill all Republicans to save the World. Or as Freedland puts it,...

New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode. British scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That is where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama acknowledged the "doubts and difficulties" clouding progress on climate change in Congress, but said the U.S. is determined to tackle global warming at a year-end summit in Copenhagen. "We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act," Mr. Obama told a United Nations meeting on climate change in New York. "And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."

The cap-and-trade movement, spooked by the pounding health care reform took over the August break, is scrambling to persuade nervous Democrats they won’t suffer politically for taking another tough vote this year. “When you get your butt kicked, like we did [after the House energy vote], it focuses the mind,” said Steve Cochran, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s National Climate Campaign. “We found out that this is not something to hide from but something to lean on — even in places where coal is king and Blue Dogs were perceived to be running for cover.” Climate bill supporters say...

Originally called geoengineering, this approach used to be dismissed as science fiction fantasies: cooling the planet with sun-blocking particles or shades; tinkering with clouds to make them more reflective; removing vast quantities of carbon from the atmosphere. climate engineering and it is looking more practical. Several recent reviews of these ideas conclude that cooling the planet would be technically feasible and economically affordable. There are still plenty of skeptics, but even they have started calling for more research into climate engineering. The skeptics understandably fear the unintended consequences of tampering with the planet’s thermostat, but they also fear the possibility...

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent. A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday that he would veto legislation requiring a third of California's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, choosing instead to mandate the change through an executive order. The Democratic bills that passed the state Legislature just before the end of the legislative session Friday would have set up the most aggressive renewable energy standards in the nation. But they also sought to limit the amount of energy from sources such as wind, solar and geothermal that could come from out-of-state. Schwarzenegger and some energy producers said the legislation would set...

I’ve always suspected this. There can be only one logical conclusion to the anthropogenic global warming campaign: eliminate human beings. Or, at least, reduce to a minimum their number on the planet. Have you had the sneaking suspicion that climate change activists were seeking to suppress every possible life-enhancing human activity from a long hot bath to a long-haul flight to an exotic destination? Have you ever had the sense that they would actually prefer it if you just ceased to occupy space on the earth, using up - as you do - its precious resources to facilitate your own...

Yesterday at monument square in Portland, liberal envirowackos from all over Maine rallied to shrill for lower standards of living for Maine residents in the name of the greenhouse myth, not to mention helping the government grow bigger and take away more of our hard earned money. The rally, which featured city council members, teamsters, America hating communists and others also circulated petitions calling for green energy in Maine, cap and trade and green jobs. The truth is that Maine is already strangled by environmental regulations against the economy. WE told you a year ago about a plan to build...

‘Government did us in,” says Dwayne Madigan, whose job will terminate when General Electric closes one its factory next July. Madigan makes a product that will soon be illegal to sell in the U.S.: a regular incandescent bulb. Two years ago, his employer, GE, lobbied in favor of the law that will outlaw the bulbs. Madigan’s colleagues, waiting for their evening shift to begin, all know that GE is replacing the incandescent for now with compact fluorescents bulbs, which GE manufactures in China. Last month, GE announced it will close the Winchester Bulb Plant 80 miles west of Washington, D.C.,...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US labor unions and environmental groups on Tuesday announced plans for a nationwide campaign to boost support for legislation to promote "clean energy" and battle climate change. The 'Made In America' Jobs Tour will open Thursday in Ohio -- a critical political battleground in US presidential elections -- and visit 50 sites in 22 US states, including other major toss-ups, the coalition said in a statement. Leaders of the United Steelworkers, Service Employees International Union, Utility Workers Union of America were to join heads of major US environmental groups on a conference call Wednesday to formally launch...

"One cause of the blunders that have made the Met Office a laughing stock is less widely appreciated, however. It is that the multi-million pound computer it uses to assist its short-term forecasting for Britain is also one of the four main official sources of data used by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to predict global warming. In this respect the IPCC's computer models have proved just as wrong in predicting global temperatures as the Met Office has been in forecasting those mild winters and heatwave summers." "In recent months, in fact, a curious little drama has...

Energy: As Russian attack submarines patrol our eastern seaboard, Moscow signs a deal to help Castro's Cuba drill for oil off the Florida coast. In Moscow and Havana, the cry is "Drill, Comrade, Drill!"Two Russian nuclear attack submarines have taken up positions along our East Coast in recent days, another sign of renewed assertiveness by the former communist giant. The move comes as Moscow inks a deal with the communist relic of Cuba to drill for oil we refuse to go after. The submarines are of the Akula class, a counterpart to the Los Angeles class attack subs of the...

HR 2749 is being rushed through Congress, and the house may look to suspend the rules and fast track the bill at Obama’s request. Just what can we expect from this legislation? A lot more of the following: Dick Peixoto planted hedges of fennel and flowering cilantro around his organic vegetable fields in the Pajaro Valley near Watsonville to harbor beneficial insects, an alternative to pesticides. He has since ripped out such plants in the name of food safety, because his big customers demand sterile buffers around his crops. No vegetation. No water. No wildlife of any kind. “I was...

This is really frightening. We warned Americans Barack Obama is a Marxist who would govern through dangerous people. Obama’s new Czar, for “Green Jobs” Anthony “Van” Jones freely admits he’s a proud San Francisco Communist with an arrest record. Because the media has no integrity and works against us, except for Fox News, we have heard little or nothing about this. The amount of damage this confirmed member of Obama’s secret “cabinet” will do as “Green Czar” is frightening to the core. With his signature this radical unelected party apparatchik will be able to crush America’s economy to help Obama’s...

"Wealthy nations should establish a fund that could spend $100 billion a year helping the world's poorest countries to tackle climate change, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Friday. Calling for the fund to be in place by 2020, Brown said that wealthier nations would be able to raise funds through the expansion of international carbon trading market - in which carbon reductions achieved by one company can be sold to another - and existing development aid. Environment ministers from industrialized nations first discussed proposals for the creation of such a fund at a conference in Denmark last month. Campaigners...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...

The coal industry is pushing back against a climate change bill that would likely curb coal use by circulating a map that shows which states would see their electric bills increase the most under the legislation. But supporters of the bill say the industry’s figures are off the mark and don’t factor in ways the bill will offset rising energy costs or the jobs that it will create. Lobbying has intensified, with Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) pressing for a floor vote next week. Waxman reported progress on Thursday in talks with Democrats from rural states who...

A new study indicates that new fuel economy standards announced last month by President Barack Obama will give New England's economy a $10 billion dollar boost over the next 15 years. The new standards will increase the average mileage for light-duty vehicles from 25.4 to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. That will save enough fuel to free up billions of dollars to reinvestment back into the local and regional economy, say researchers from the University of New Hampshire's Carbon Solutions New England. CSNE Director Cameron Wake, the report's author, says light-duty motor vehicles, which include passenger cars, light trucks,...

The government is continuing to encroach on freedoms more and more in the name of climate change. Case in point: An ordinance that went into effect June 1 stating if you sell your home in Austin, Texas and you fail to get a clean energy "green" audit, you will likely face criminal charges. According to an ordinance passed by the Austin City Council passed in November 2008, any home 10 years or older will require an "Energy Conservation Audit. Failure to comply - criminal charges as explained by the local community-owned electric utility: ...more (w/video)...

Director Mike Judge’s new animated television series “The Goode Family” is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words “What would Al Gore do?” Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet’s dismay) and Mr. Goode dutifully separates sheets of toilet paper when his wife accidentally buys two-ply. And, of course, the family drives a hybrid. On Wednesday at 9 p.m., “The Goode Family” will have its premiere on ABC and become the first animated series on the network’s prime-time...

This will frost their behinds...the holier than thou libtards will not be able to deal with being laughed at. The Goode family's motto is "What would Al Gore Do?" They wanted to adopt an African child but wound up with a white kid from South Africa. Their dog is forced to be a vegan like them, but eats all the pets in the neighborhood. It looks pretty funny. The creator is Mike Judge of Beavis and Butt-Head fame. Check out the clips on the site...the pilot will be broadcast on May 27.

A new propaganda video created by an extreme environmental activist is making its way into America's classrooms and The New York Times loves the whole idea. Enviro obsessive Annie Leonard, Greenpeace member and activist, has created a 20 minute video filled with anti-capitalist, anti-American propaganda to encourage kids to eschew "stuff," calling the presentation "The Story of Stuff." Leonard's propaganda piece is so anti-American she even begins her video by saying that her "friends" say she should describe the United States by using the symbol of a military tank because "it's true in many countries and increasingly in our own."...

Even if economists are correct in detecting "green shoots" in the economy, a new survey shows the cumulative effect of the recession still growing in its impact on U.S. households. And, with all due respect to the joys of frugality, many people resent having had to downsize their lifestyles.

"You don't know me."

WASHINGTON (AP) - Consumers will face higher electricity prices if Congress passes a global warming bill without giving utilities some allowances to emit greenhouse gases, electricity providers warned Thursday. "Revenues associated with pricing greenhouse gases would be returned to the very consumers who would be at risk for paying higher energy prices," said Richard Morgan, who leads the District of Columbia's Public Service Commission.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Bush administration did not properly study the environmental impact of expanding oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast and canceled a program to find new reserves. A three-judge panel in Washington found that the Bush-era Interior Department failed to consider the effect on the environment and marine life before it began the process in August 2005 to expand an oil and gas leasing program in the Beaufort, Bering, and Chukchi seas. The appeals court ordered the department, now run by President Barack Obama's appointee Ken Salazar, to analyze...

SPOKANE, Wash. -- The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states. But it's not easy to get sparkling dishes when you go green....

A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.

In what it's calling a "vote for the future of planet Earth," the World Wildlife Fund wants every light in the world to go dark for one hour on Saturday as a symbolic gesture to call for action on climate change.It's called Earth Hour — and among the places where the lights will go out are the Eiffel Tower, the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, the Pyramids of Giza and Niagara Falls.And, for the first time in the event's three-year existence, the New York headquarters of the United Nations will also go dark, a move officials say will save $102,...

Have we all suddenly gone mad? Have our wits suddenly deserted us? Has common sense been completely routed from our lives? The indications are not good. In a little-noticed verdict last week, a U.S. District Court of Appeals has decided that the Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to act against farmers who endanger public health by kicking up dust in the course of their business. Expect anti-dust regulations and fines to follow. For those unfamiliar with pastoral activities, allow me to enlighten: I grew up on a farm, and can personally attest that most types of agriculture...

Megyn Kelly is way too easy on this guy.

Eco-warriors and media hype aside, the fact is, as we head into 2009, that the world's ice mass has been expanding not contracting. Which will surprise evening news junkies fed a diet of polar bears floating about on ice floes and snow shelves falling into the oceans. But if a whole series of reports on ice growth in the Arctic, the Antarctic and among glaciers are right, then it is truth in the mainstream media (MSM) that's in meltdown not the polar ice caps. The problem for the MSM is that it long ago nailed its colors to the climate...

It's hard to imagine a rationale that would have the government declare each and every person in America a danger to the environment, but that's exactly what Obama's new Global Warming Czar, Carol Browner, just did...

A Catholic charity has launched a scathing attack on the Green movement, describing the excesses of environmentalism as an ideology every bit as dangerous as Communism. While global warming should be a "crucial issue" for the Church, worshippers must be deeply sceptical about many of the claims made by the environmentalist lobby, a new booklet published by the bishops of England and Wales has said. Written by Russell Sparkes, an expert in ethical investments, it argues that there is a proven tendency among some "Deep Green" activists to exaggerate the threat of global warming to vindicate their calls for government...

Actress Ashley Judd says a wolf management program backed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "incredibly savage ... it's not right, it's not appropriate, it makes no sense on any level." Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," Judd repeated her criticism of a program that allows hunters firing from aircraft to shoot wolves to thin the numbers of the animals. Judd recently appeared in a video for the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, which also opposes the Palin-backed aerial hunting program. Referring to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by name in the video, Judd says that Palin is...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Inaugural revelers are lucky they didn't get fined for littering. As crowds cleared the city Tuesday, their trash covered the National Mall and Washington Monument grounds after President Barack Obama's inauguration. They left behind plastic bottles, newspapers, food wrappers, gloves and even American flags they had been waving. Trash bins overflowed with items people tossed. Twenty-one-year-old Laura Wiesner of Youngstown, Ohio, was on the cluttered Mall near the Smithsonian's American History Museum. She says people's quick exit - and failure to pick up after themselves - was a stark contrast to how grand the event had...

The following petition has 2,200 signatures. Also please file any complaints with the FDA (Medwatch Reporting Form). Here is the link. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm Find the blue Begin button to the right to start. Text of petition: The FDA, in compliance with the Montreal Protocol, has banned the use of life-saving CFC propellant albuterol asthma rescue inhalers in order to help restore the ozone layer, even though it has been widely acknowledged that these CFC inhaler emissions are too trivial to harm the ozone layer: Leslie Hendeles, University of Florida Professor of Pharmacy and Pediatrics, has noted that CFC inhalers release negligible...

(Dry Desert, California) The unexpected discovery of a nest of red-cheeked squirrels amidst the huge, partially constructed MegaPyre Solar Power plant has halted construction, casting doubt on the viability of what has been considered to be the environmentalist's crown jewel of renewable power facilities. The 20 gigawatt plant was expected to provide electricity to much of southern California, and was only 6 months away from completion when the nest of squirrels, which are on the endangered species list, was found. Due to federal regulations regarding endangered species, moving the nest to another location is not permitted. The situation has confounded...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices dropped to their lowest in more than four years on Wednesday after OPEC announced a record supply cut that dealers said may fail to fully offset slumping world energy demand. U.S. crude oil prices fell $3.54 to settle at $40.06 a barrel after dipping below $40 for first time since July 2004. London Brent fell $1.12 to $45.53. Oil prices have fallen more than $100 since July as a global financial crisis cuts into consumer and industrial fuel demand, and top forecasters are now predicting the first decline in world energy use since 1983....

(excerpted from one section) Greenhouse Effect ... Can We Change the Climate? It may seem hard to believe that people can actually change the Earth’s climate. But scientists think that the things people do that send greenhouse gases into the air are making our planet warmer. All use energy. But we need to use energy wisely if we want to slow global warming. Once, all climate changes occurred naturally. However, during the Industrial Revolution, we began altering our climate and environment through agricultural and industrial practices. The Industrial Revolution was a time when people began using machines to make life...

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said. Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade. He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected...

Flights at Stansted were today grounded after at least 50 climate change protesters broke into the airport and occupied a runway.Activists cut through fencing and once on the landing strip chained themselves together and surrounded themselves with their security fencing to create a ‘fort’.Members of the Plane Stupid organisation, who are protesting against the proposed second runway, grounded flights after achieving their aim of closing the airstrip. The occupied runway had been due to reopen at 5am. Airlines were told to divert their planes in the skies and, although the airport terminal has been opened to passengers, no aircraft...